The King of Babysitting
by aikakone
Summary: Missing scene from 1.15 "The King of Columbus Circle." Jo and Henry babysit the little prince for 4 hours. They talk and find again how they are not very different. [For Laurapanda]


**A/N**: For Laurapanda who asked for the missing scene from 1.15 of what Jo and Henry might have done those 4 hours they were babysitting.

* * *

They wait with the baby. They don't discuss it. It just happens and they accept it in that way that they've started to accept each other. Jo wasn't wrong that they are professional partners, and it's turned out to be a good relationship for what it is. Still, sometimes Jo is curious. She wouldn't be a good detective if she weren't.

"Henry, do you want to tell me about it?" Jo asks. She's leaning in to his emotional territory, pressing at its borders where she might make inroads into the mystery that is Henry Morgan.

"There isn't much to tell. Other plans," he says again as he strokes the boy's head. He really is a beautiful child.

There are some who have said that one's first kiss is the standard by which all other kisses will be measured and found wanting. Henry thinks less of kisses and more of children. His amazing, infuriating, brave and so many other adjectives child Abraham. He and Abigail did well, but much of Abe's greatness was his own.

As Henry's mind drifts back to memories long past, Jo looks at her phone with an unhappy expression on her face. No one is on tap to come help them, so she uses her humor and loftiest voice to address her professional partner. "Dr. Morgan, we don't have anyone to help with the baby. Could I interest you in babysitting with me?"

Henry regards her slowly as he does when he's thinking about things, mentally tasting his thoughts before releasing them into the world. "It would be a pleasure. One doesn't always get the chance to say one has taken care of royalty."

Jo leads the way to a waiting room where they can sit and care for the boy. She quietly observes Henry because he has a comfort with the child that is attractive to her in a way she would rather not consider.

"Did you come from a large family?" she asks softly. When Henry raises his eyebrows to show curiosity, she answers that she was trying to guess where his comfort with babies came from if he and Abigail never had children.

Jostling the boy and weighing his options, Henry finally says, "Abigail was a nurse. She had a way with children. And what is your story, detective? Why are you so comfortable with a baby?"

Jo waves her hand in the air dismissing anything unusual. "Typical story. I have a large family, and there were always babies in the neighborhood. I helped take care of the other kids."

"So you and Sean?" he asks.

A wry look passes over Jo's face. "As you said. Other plans."

The two adults sit silently for a while after that, not sure what to say to each other. They have the baby to distract themselves, though, so they concentrate on him instead of their healing wounds that they don't really care to share.

"Henry," Jo says, "do you think I could use your scarf?"

"It is rather cold in this hospital, isn't it? I'm used to the cold temperatures of the morgue, so I've grown accustomed to it."

"Yes, that's true, but I thought maybe we could wrap him in it so he doesn't get too cold," she says logically.

Henry, on the other hand, doesn't want to think of logic. "It's a scarf, not a receiving blanket."

He takes his suit jacket off instead and wraps the boy in it. He even has a trick of swaddling with the arms that would impress Jo if she were in the mood to tell Henry that his baby-related skills impress her. Sometimes she lets the feelings show; sometimes she doesn't.

After securing him, Henry leans over the boy and makes silly faces and noises, much to the little boy's delight. Jo has a fleeting thought of the professional Dr. Morgan doing the same thing over the corpses he autopsies, and it's so random and absurd that she can't help but laugh. It is timed with the baby's own laugh, so Henry doesn't immediately notice her. Jo is much happier for not having to explain herself. There are worse ways to let off steam than laughing with a cute baby and a compassionate doctor.

As Henry waits with the boy on the floor, he sings to him softly with the songs his caregivers sang to him when he was a boy. He adds a few he picked up from Abigail and ones they sang to Abe. This time the ephemeral memory of her as he sings doesn't hurt him. It brings that elusive Abigail smile to his face that Jo now recognizes.

"Nice, Henry," Jo compliments with a smile that he sees when he moves his body to look at her.

She looks relaxed for a moment, so he lightly teases her about the lullabyes being for the baby and not for her. "What do you do to take care of a baby?"

"Old classics like peek-a-boo and reading a book," she says. Then she asks, "What would you have named your child? If you and Abigail ever had one."

"Oh, probably something old and classical," Henry says evasively.

"Like Adam? You can't get much older than that," Jo says as if she's clever. She's pointing to the Gideon's Bible that is on the table with the rest of the reading material.

"No, you can't," Henry agrees, quickly thinking of the other immortal who has begun haunting his life. He immediately dismisses the thought by turning the conversation back to Jo.

"What about you and Sean? Would your children have had both surnames or just one?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Most days we said we'd give any children his name. Some days I told him that all girls would have my name, and all boys could have his name. Obviously, we never got to figure it out."

"Jo, why did you keep your maiden name? I admit I have wondered," he adds with his best sheepish look.

She's silent a while before she says, "Because I did it. All my achievements were my own. I made it out of the neighborhood and didn't go into a life of crime. I went into the police academy on my own, and every day I work in a male-dominated field and succeed. _I_ did that, and I was doing that before I ever met Sean."

"I didn't think of it like that," Henry says.

"Most men don't. You get to keep your own identity, even when married," she says wisely as a woman who has lived and worked in that environment. "Abigail changed her name, didn't she?"

"Of course. We were traditionalists," he explains, but Jo knows she's made her subtle point.

Henry gets up from the floor with the baby and rests him in a chair between them. Jo is quiet and contemplative. He studies her face for a moment.

"Coffee for your thoughts," he prompts.

"I'd love one," she says with a tired moan.

He goes off to retrieve hospital coffee, and it's no better than the coffee in the precinct. It seems the lot they share as professionals in law enforcement and medicine is to be surrounded by bad coffee. He hands her a cup prepared just the way she likes it. She holds it in one hand while her other hand strokes the baby.

"Fathers and daughters," she at last says. "It's a shame when their lives don't connect."

Henry guesses that Jo is observing more than the princess and her father. She is perhaps speaking of herself. It is not in what she says directly, but in the way Jo works around her past. There are many what-might-have-beens in the room, but they haunt it unacknowledged.

After Jo has finished her coffee, she throws off the cloak of melancholy that briefly came to her and she plays with the baby. He laughs with her, and the joy is contagious. Henry joins them on the floor and they have a time full of silliness and smiles that is so rare for people who work with the dead and their impact on the living. It is good to just be happy for a while and not think of anything else.

After four hours comes and goes, they are finally relieved of their babysitting duties. Henry yawns with his tiredness. It has been a long time since he was baby Abe's father, and he lost some of his stamina.

Both he and Jo stifle yawns at the same time, and she laughs first.

"Go home and get some rest, Henry. Thank you for staying with me to take care of him."

He smiles. "My pleasure, Jo. I'll see you soon then."

She agrees, and they part ways once again.


End file.
